I went the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa today and had a great time. I like to check out the high dollar RVs and see what is new in them. I saw all the new 2013 Prevosts and all of them had Volvo engines, so I asked the salesman if this is new for 2013 and he said yes. Then I asked him if you can you still get DD Series 60 in them and he said no they all now come with the Volvo engines. I'm not sure how true this is but that's what he said. I'm not in the market for a new Prevost I like my Eagle too much Anyway, I was wondering how good are those Volvo engines? I like the Detroit engines myself. I do know that Volvo owns Prevost so I can't blame them for putting in their own engines.

The Series 60 isn't even offered by Detroit anymore due to new emissions laws. Detroit came out with the DD15 to replace the Series 60, but the DD15 was only offered in Diamler brand vehicles. Prevost started using the Volvo engine since Detroit was no longer an option and Volvo owns Prevost now.

Detroit decided to sell the DD13 engine to other companies. MCI now offers the Cummins ISX as standard with the Detroit DD13 as an option. Van Hool also offers the DD13.

DD13 is plenty of power-up to 500hp and 1650lb/ft torque for RV. The Volvo engine is a good engine-albeit a suspicious looking engine-like copying the Series 60. From real world comparisons of the D13 Volvo to the Detroit DD13, the Volvo will get about .2-.3mpg less, use 2.6% DEF compared to DD13 2%, has a 35,000mi oil change compared to DD13's 50,000mi. There's such a difference in operating cost, one of my customers is not buying Volvo anymore-just Freightliner with DD15's at 455hp and 1550lb/ft torque-which is the lowest setting on that engine. Now with the GHG (Green House Gas)14's and Freightliner's Cascadia Evolution that gets another 5% better fuel mileage then the original DD15 (Detroit took off the turbo compounder since it is only active on hill climbs and they found it uses fuel on the flat, and also a thermostatically controlled water pump with aerodynamic enhancements) there are NO other trucks that is as fuel efficient as the Freightliner Cascadia Evolution. Good Luck, TomC

Daimler owns Detroit, Freightliner, Orion bus when it was functioning.

Volvo owns Prevost and Mack.

MCI is owned by some investment firm, and as yet, has not been gobbled up by another large transportation related manufacturer.

Daimler and Volvo are fierce competitors on the world stage.

North America was the last place that mix and match heavy vehicle manufacturing was going on, and it started to drift away from that over a decade ago. Wide choices of components from various manufacturers that you went shopping from all the catalogs to build the vehicle.

With the massive investment for emissions related engine development, and what it takes to engineer an engine into a chassis, they all took the opportunity to stop selling to their competitors' subsidiaries.

Caterpillar simple gave up and left the North American on highway market, as they didn't see a return on the investment needed for pollution controls with a diminished market. Paccar (Kenworth and Peterbilt) was in the throes of sourcing a European engine at the time too, which has happened.

Cummins is the only independent engine manufacturer left here, and works closely with all sides in order to remain an optional install. Recently, they entered into agreements with International. International was in a lot of trouble, as they had tried to go without DEF, and ran out of time and money to surmount the engineering challenges of an in-cylinder solution to pollution. Cummins will be providing fuel delivery and emissions related hardware, technology amd engineering to put on International's engines to get them pollution compliant.

The heavy vehicle sector has been making the move to vertical integration, as it is called. This is where you put all your own stuff in your own vehicle, and don't sell stuff to anyone else.

Like the auto manufacturers, you can't order a Ford engine in your Chevrolet...

MCI got sort of caught, and for awhile only had Cummins power when Detroit wouldn't sell to anyone else.

Lots of fun moving forward a decade or two from now as all this stuff falls into bus converter hands!!!

At one point, the Series 60 was available in all makes of trucks. I think it was a mistake for Detroit to sell out to Freightliner. I know of more then one fleet of trucks that switched from Volvos, Pete, KW to Freightliner so they could still have the Series 60 engine.

If when looking for a bus, if you find one with up to a '98 model Series 60 in it-jump on it. Probably the most reliable electronic engine every made and great fuel mileage. Good Luck, TomC

What has always surprised me is why the American bus industry didn't develop with the same chassis builder / body builder model that exists elsewhere in the world. It happened in the big motorhome industry, but not in the bus industry for some reason - which is strange given the size of the US and the predominance of road vehicles over other forms of transport generally - you'd have thought lots of regional builders would be producing bus bodies to suit powertrains from a few national suppliers.

Even after lots of consolidation and mergers there are dozens of monocoque bus body builders in Europe, and more in the Far East and Australasia, all busy competing with each other to produce a better product, and all offering the customer a choice of powertrains from Volvo, Mercedes, MAN, Scania, DAF etc. You can even still specify Bedford if you really want too.

The kicker now is, if someone overseas specifies a Mercedes power plant, it will be the OM471-which is based on Detroit's DD13. But of course Mercedes had to make about 150 changes (including their own electronics) to make sure it was their own. Good Luck, TomC

Even since DD hasn't sold engines to Volvo or Prevost after 2009 you still see 2012 model Prevost with DD goes to show he the bus market has slowed down the Volvo D13 is just now showing up I never saw a 500 hp D13 Volvo in a Prevost yet most are in the 425 to 450 range

Competition is always a good thing. I make no secret that I won seval shares of CUMMINS stock. But I shudder to think how the quality would be if DETROIT wasn't around. Until the last few years, school buses used to offer chassis from different builders but not that has changed where INTERNATIONAL chassis can only be had on with a body company they own. Same with BLUEBIRD and THOMAS. Many smaller buses that are used for airport rental car shuttle buses for which there are quite a few builders almost all use the FREIGHTLINER rear engine chassis. The VAN-HOOL 3035RE also uses it. PIERCE MFG. the most popular fire apparatus builder is the only fire truck builder that offers DETROIT so that gives them an advantage to those departments that hate CUMMNINS.

Prevost had two conversion shells on the floor of the Tampa show, an X3 and H3. Both had the Volvo and were rated at 515 HP. One thing that got my attention was the 4 individual alternators, one one the engine itself and three others mounted off to the side. It was interesting to see the construction of the empty motorhome shells, the SS truss system in the bays for the slides plus the tensioning device to keep the roof from sagging. Another interesting tidbit is the X3 only comes in the long wheelbase while XLII (no longer being produced) came in both long and short wheelbase. The H3 has the short wheelbase and will stay that way.